


Moon in Your Mouth

by hotwheels_kin



Category: Project Blue Book (TV)
Genre: #Allen has psychometry, #Allens gay and Mimi is his best friend and a lesbian and Joel is adopted, #Cannon? I don’t know her, #and they got married to save on taxes, #au where h0m0ph0bia doesn’t exist like at all, #this may be a dumb question but did cars have AC back then? Too bad it’s a plot device now, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, psychometric Allen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 23:36:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18158519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotwheels_kin/pseuds/hotwheels_kin
Summary: Allen has always been able to read memories from the objects he touches, but he never thought anything of it. That is, until Michael's coat gives him a vision that makes him a little jealous...





	1. Almost Adorable

**Author's Note:**

> Hey fellas! This is my first PBB fic so I don't even know what's happening? Anyways, Allen has psychometry, or the ability to read memories off of objects. And there's some minor swearing but nothing more than what's in the show.  
> This fic is inspired by the song "Moon in Your Mouth" by Goldfrapp :)  
> Also I might add more to this??

Driving through the blazing Arizona heat in complete silence was not exactly how Allen pictured spending this Saturday morning, yet here he was. Captain Quinn wasn’t really the talkative type, and if Allen tried to think about anything too hard, his mind fell back to the flames licking Fuller’s face, so the two of them just sat there in the stifling air, restless in their seats.  
  
Quinn was still wearing his coat and that Panama hat, and Allen could tell that it was killing him. Quinn loved that hat, even though the way it smashed his ears and made them stick out was kind of silly. Allen paused for a moment, distinctly remembering now that, when they were both being shot at, the captain told him to throw his hat as a distraction. God forbid anything happened to the captain’s.  
  
“Alright, I gotta shed a layer. Hold the wheel for me, would you?” Quinn finally broke the silence. Allen just nodded and leaned over. It was barely necessary on this flat, straight shot to whatever remote base they were off to, the boring prologue for another wild goose chase. Quinn twisted and wriggled to get his arms out of the sleeves. Allen pretended not to steal a glance at Quinn’s biceps. Suddenly, the coat grazed Allen’s wrist.  
  
Allen was immediately pulled into a vision. A redheaded woman at a bar, playing with the hem of the coat sleeve. The condensation on a cold glass wetting the fabric as the coat sleeve brushes against it. A dim bedroom. The woman peeling the coat away from Quinn’s chest. The coat falling to the floor, and the vision ended. Allen blinked a few times and tried to focus on the road.  
  
“Thanks.” Quinn tossed his coat in the back seat took the wheel back. Allen stared blankly, and then unwrapped his fingers from the wheel.  
  
“So… did you go out last night?” Allen attempted to start some kind of conversation.  
  
“How’d you know? I don’t smell that bad, do I?” Quinn smirked.  
  
“No, I just felt it.” Allen replied, now feeling awkward. All he wanted to do was make small talk, but maybe this was the wrong subject.  
  
“Alright, Professor. I didn’t know being a smart person also included very specific intuition about my personal life.” Quinn glanced over and made a face. Allen raised an eyebrow.  
  
“No, I felt it,” Allen gestured towards where it lay in the back seat, “on your coat.”  
  
“What do you mean, _you felt it on my coat?”_ Quinn squinted, and then began fumbling for a cigarette from his pocket.  
  
“You know, I felt it when your coat touched me.” When Allen said that, Quinn figured the road didn’t need his attention glued to it for a moment and looked Allen in the eyes.  
  
“Doc, what the hell do you mean?”  
  
“I mean when I touched your coat, I felt it went to a bar last night, and you met a woman with red hair.”  
  
Quinn slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a halt on the dusty road. He stayed facing the road for a second to take a deep breath and light his cigarette, then turned to Allen.  
  
“What the hell kind of trick are you trying to pull? Have you been following me or something?” Quinn searched Allen’s eyes, but they were as confused and innocent as ever.  
  
“I’m not pulling any trick! I’m serious. You know how when you touch certain things and you can feel what they-”  
  
“Doc, what the fuck are you talking about?” Quinn was getting agitated now.  
  
“Is that not something you’ve experienced? Captain, I’m as confused as you are right now.”  
  
“No, I have not experienced anything like that, because no one has,” Quinn replied. Quinn closed his eyes and took a long drag from his cigarette. Maybe all these loonies they had met talking about aliens had really rubbed off on Allen. “Are you crazy?”  
  
“I am not! I didn’t know this wasn’t something everyone experienced, I swear.” Quinn looked into Allen’s smart, stupid, little eyes and couldn’t find anything in them that wasn’t sincere.  
  
“You mean to tell me that your whole life, you’ve been seeing things when you touch objects, and you never thought to question it?” Quinn rubbed his temple.  
  
“Well, I mean, I thought it was weird that no one ever talked about it, but… I don’t know. It doesn’t happen very often.”  
  
Allen searched his memories, but he’d always been so busy whenever it had happened that he’d just let it go. He tried to let it sink in that it wasn’t a fact of life for everyone, but he realized that sinking in might take his entire lifetime. It was… strange. Like when he was little and saw his first motion picture, he had to keep telling himself that it wasn’t real and the people weren’t really there.  
  
“Okay, I’m going to need you to prove this to me a little more.” Quinn interrupted Allen’s thoughts. “Touch this.” Quinn handed him his lighter.  
  
“Wait, it doesn’t just work like-” Allen couldn’t finish because the emotions from the lighter hit him like a slap in the face.  
  
Quinn lights up a cigarette as he interrogates a German prisoner. Bullets pepper a fighter plane and the lighter almost leaves Quinn’s pocket as the plane swerves and dives. Quinn flicks the lighter open and closed, staring at the flame, while behind him, a woman is being buried, but Quinn refuses to look. Quinn clenches his fist around the smooth metal surface before starting his planned bar fight in the little Bavarian town. Quinn sits at a dilapidated pub in Germany, drinking with American pilots. The lighter sits on the bar, abandoned with the place, and Quinn pockets it.  
  
But Allen can feel a layer to the object that’s deeper even than Quinn. There’s an old man with a scraggly beard pulling up the floorboards and ushering people into a cramped space. He closes the floorboard and there’s a knock at the door. He lets soldiers in and casually lights a cigarette. The soldiers crack the old man across the face with a rifle. He hits the floor, and his blood drips through a crack in the floorboards and on to the people hidden below. The soldiers take the old man and set fire to his home. The flames curl around the desperate faces of the people under the floorboards.  
  
The lighter fell from Allen’s hand as if it was searing hot. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to unsee what had been seen. He’d never tried to use his power before, and he bit off more than he could chew. Now his mind was flooded with images, of the hidden people as they died, and of course of Fuller and his placid face as he lit himself on fire.  
  
“Doc. Allen!” Quinn’s voice pulled him back to reality. “You okay?”  
  
Allen looked into Quinn’s eyes, wondering how he could go on living after seeing such horror, such pain, such destruction. “I saw… you, being shot down. Interrogating someone. Finding the lighter at a bar in Germany.”  
  
Quinn was silent, and Allen knew Quinn believed him now. Allen couldn’t even begin to explain the rest of what he had gleaned from the lighter.  
  
Quinn picked up his lighter and began driving again as if nothing had happened. They went back to their silence for a while, until Quinn began to laugh a little.  
  
“What?” Allen looked at him, still reeling.  
  
“Nothing. I just keep thinking about how much of an idiot you are, even though you’re supposed to be some kind of genius.”  
  
“And that makes you laugh?”  
  
“Yeah. It’s almost adorable.” Quinn turned away from him as he spoke and tossed his cigarette butt out the window. Allen didn’t quite know what to make of anything that had happened on this car ride, but the captain almost calling him adorable became the biggest mystery of all.


	2. Silly Hats

After a long day of sorting through conflicting stories from townsfolk and pilots about lights in the sky, Allen was ready for a drink. The desert was cool at night, and its gentle breeze invited Allen and Quinn to sit outside their motel rooms as the last of the sun’s rays faded.  
  
Quinn produced a bottle of whiskey and Allen silently toasted to General Harding stubbing his toe. They sat without speaking, not wishing to go over the grueling details of the current case or make really bad small talk again. Quinn had that little smirk on his face as he looked out into the desert.  
  
“Can’t believe we travel the country debunking UFOs and the real unexplained sighting is sitting next to me.” Quinn sipped his whiskey and his dark eyes peered out at Allen from under his Panama hat. Allen just laughed.  
  
Now that it was dark, the cold started to get to Allen. “I think I’ll just get my coat. The desert’s weather is quite moody.”  
  
He stepped inside his motel room to grab a coat. He barely had time to pack for this trip since the army loved to surprise him. He had just thrown some clothes in his bag, and Mimi had thrown his coat in just in case. He was glad she did. The motel carpet lent itself to static energy, and as soon as Allen touched his coat, a static shock hit his finger, and an emotional shock hit his mind.  
  
This was the coat he had been wearing when he met Fuller in the abandoned amusement park turned secret hospital. Allen could smell the gasoline and feel his feet tearing into the damp grass as he ran towards the pilot. His cheeks grew warm as the fire engulfed Fuller, and the captain wrapped his arms around him, dragging him away. Allen returned to the porch, white as a sheet, and took a swig of the whiskey.  
  
“Thought you were getting a coat.” Quinn remarked.  
  
“I couldn’t… I didn’t…” Allen looked down at his hands, unable to find the words quite yet.  
  
“Forget it?” Quinn started lighting a cigarette, and seeing the lighter only sent another shiver down Allen’s spine.  
  
“No, I just… couldn’t put it on right now.” Allen took out his notebook and pretended like he was writing something, trying to think about anything else.  
  
“Hey,” Quinn started, turning to face Allen and taking off his hat. “You’re acting weird, even for you. What’s going on?”  
  
Allen felt the knot of stress in his chest loosen for a moment as he looked into Quinn’s eyes. The captain probably could understand better than anyone in the world what was going through Allen’s head.  
  
“It’s… it’s Fuller. I keep seeing him.”  
  
“I know how that is, trust me.” Quinn replied. “I’ve lost a lot of people. Seen a lot of good men die, and a lot of bad men kill innocent people.”  
  
Allen’s stomach churned as he thought back to seeing horrific photos in the newspapers from the war. He couldn’t imagine living those. He’d have gone insane. It seemed a miracle that the captain was sitting in front of him in one piece.  
  
“The first one always stuck with me though. Never got it out of my mind, but you learn to stop it from messing with your head.” Quinn had to break eye contact when he spoke.  
  
“I saw him when I touched my coat.” Allen felt a lump in his throat.  
  
Silence overcame the two of them. Quinn ashed his cigarette. Allen looked back at the blank page of his notebook.  
  
“That’s not something I had to deal with, but you’re smart. You’ll figure it out.” Quinn attempted a smile.  
  
“I don’t know about that. You’re always going on about how I’m the dumbest smart person you know.” Allen pressed his pencil to the page even though there was still nothing he wanted to write. The tip of the pencil snapped off, ruining the little game of pretend.  
  
“Hey now, if you thought I was being serious, maybe you are the dumbest smart person I know,” Quinn chuckled.  
  
The wind began to pick up, ruffling the pages of Allen’s notebook and almost swiping the captain’s hat from the table. Allen shivered and crossed his arms, bracing himself for the next big gust.  
  
“Come on, Doc. Go grab your coat. It’s not gonna bite you. Just don’t think about it.” Quinn encouraged him.  
  
“Easy for you to say,” Allen quipped, but he gave in.  
  
He found himself in the motel room again, just staring at the coat. Allen told himself he rarely felt something from the same object twice, and maybe if he didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t happen, and if it did, it would be over in less than a second. But fear still gripped him, and he had to push it back. It was like someone else was moving his hands and reaching toward the coat, and as if someone else’s hand had touched it, he felt absolutely nothing when he picked it up and put it on.  
  
“Was that so hard?” Quinn was putting out his cigarette when Allen returned better equipped for the cold. Allen just rolled his eyes and sat back down.  
  
While the captain poured them more whiskey, Allen began to wonder if this thing was something he could control, something he could harness. He had come to realize that it would never be credible to anyone else, but that didn’t mean it was without uses. He had learned more about the captain’s past from the lighter than from the captain’s own words. He was suddenly reminded of the part of his vision he hadn’t told Quinn about.  
  
“Captain, can I ask you something?” Allen was nervous to start something again, but at the same time, he couldn’t resist asking. He wanted to know more about Quinn.  
  
“Sure Doc, fire away.”  
  
“When I touched the lighter… I also saw you a funeral for a woman.” Allen watched as the captain’s grip on the glass of whiskey tightened. Allen backpedaled. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”  
  
Quinn didn’t respond for a moment, swirling the whiskey around in his glass before downing it. He was contemplating. He had never talked to anyone about it after it happened. Hadn’t even seen his parents since. But it was a heavy load that he carried alone. And he liked the professor, trusted him, and heard him open up.  
  
“My sister. Scarlet Fever. Three years ago.” Quinn relinquished. Though it brought back old pain, Quinn felt relief in finally saying it out loud.  
  
“I’m sorry.” Allen repeated, and felt terrible now for asking.  
  
“It’s alright.” Quinn shifted in his chair. “It’s been a while.”  
  
But Allen knew it wasn’t alright. “Captain, I shouldn’t have asked, I’m sorry-”  
  
“Doc, it’s cool,” Quinn interrupted. “We’ve all got baggage. Some more than others.” He began to smile again. “Some of us read objects and ask weird questions.”  
  
Allen felt like it was okay to laugh now. “And some of us wear silly hats that make our ears stick out.”  
  
Quinn scoffed and looked more hurt from that comment than he did talking about the war or his sister. “You got a problem with my hat?”  
  
Allen cupped his hands and put them on his ears, palms facing out. “This is what they look like.”  
  
Quinn furrowed his brow and put the hat on. He felt his ears with his hands, then stood up. He rushed to the mirror in the motel room, investigating Allen’s claim. He returned to the porch with the Panama hat in hand, looking displeased.  
  
“I can’t believe you just ruined my favorite hat.” Quinn plopped back down in his chair, tossing the hat on the table and crossing his arms.  
  
“You just push it down too far on your head, see?” Allen picked up the hat and put it on, letting it sit just above his ears. The captain rolled his eyes and grabbed the hat from his head. He placed it gently on, feeling his ears afterwards to make sure they weren’t smashed. “See? Looks great now.”  
  
“Thank you, Mr. Genius Professor, Sir.” Quinn teased.  
  
“You’re welcome, Captain.” Allen tipped an imaginary hat. “My dumb smart brain is at your service.”  
  
They both laughed at that. Allen couldn’t tell if it was the whiskey, the cool breeze, or the captain, but something had loosened him up and made him forget about everything for just a moment.  
  
“You know what? Call me Michael. Enough of this formal ‘Captain’ shit.” Quinn turned and poured himself another glass of whiskey.  
  
Allen’s stomach was doing flips and cartwheels. He had perhaps drank more than he normally would, but not enough to upset his stomach like this. “Okay Michael.” Allen tested out the name, and he liked the way it sounded. “Well, you can call me Allen then.”  
  
“Alright, Allen. I do like calling you Doc though. It suits you.” Michael took off his hat again and leaned over the table to place it on Allen’s head. Their faces were suddenly closer than Allen had expected. “My silly hat kinda suits you too.”  
  
The cold wind from the desert had ceased, and Allen’s cheeks were warm. He could hear Michael’s breath, and the hat on his head felt like ice burning into his skin.  
  
“You know, I never thanked you,” Michael whispered.  
  
“For what?” Allen stared at him blankly.  
  
“I was mad at you that night at Camp Knoll, for not listening to me, for following me into a warzone, and for stealing that fucking thing from White Forest. But you saved my ass.” Michael looked almost sheepish as he said it.  
  
“You’re welcome. Thanks for saving me, practically all the time.”  
  
“Maybe dumb isn’t always the right word. Maybe you’re brave too.”  
  
They were ever so close now, close enough for Allen to stare at Michael’s eyelashes as he blinked, to feel his breath, and to hear his heartbeat.  
  
When Michael kissed him, Allen’s emotions sparked with vision. Michael fidgets at his desk, distracted from the report he’s supposed to be filing. Michael laughs to himself about how crazy it was for Allen to steal the object from White Forest. Michael feels hopelessly betrayed by the organization that had directed his life for years, and somehow he feels like he can trust Allen more than them. Michael looks up at the moon and thinks, _this is stupid_ , but he’s still wondering if Allen could be studying the heavens at this very moment, gazing up at that same moon.  
  
They were just two human men, pulled by gravity to a rock that was hurtling through space around a fiery mass of gas and energy, a miniscule part of a colossal universe. But for a moment, they were the center of the cosmos.


End file.
